Love and Life eBook

She thus reached Proserpine’s throne, and obtained
the casket, but when she had again reached the earth,
she reflected that if Venus’s beauty were impaired
by anxiety, her own must have suffered far more; and
the prohibition having of course been only intended
to stimulate her curiosity, she opened the casket,
out of which came the baneful fumes of Death!
Just, however, as she fell down overpowered, her
husband, who had been shut up by Venus, came to the
rescue, and finding himself unable to restore her,
cried aloud to Jupiter, who heard his prayer, reanimated
Psyche, and gave her a place among the gods.

CHAPTERS.

I. A syllabub
party.
II. The
house of Delavie.
III. Among the
cowslips.
IV. My
lady’s missive.
V. The
summons.
VI. Disappointed
love.
VII. All alone.
VIII. The enchanted
castle.
IX. The
triad.
X. The
dark chamber.
XI. A voice
from the grave.
XII. The shafts
of Phoebe.
XIII. The flutter of
his wings.
XIV. The canon
of Windsor.
XV. The
queen of beauty.
XVI. AUGURIES.
XVII. The victim demanded.
XVIII. The proposal.
XIX. Wooing in
the dark.
XX. The
muffled bridegroom.
XXI. The sister’s
meeting
XXII. A fatal spark.
XXIII. Wrath and desolation.
XXIV. The wanderer.
XXV. Vanished.
XXVI. The traces.
XXVII. Cytherea’s bower.
XXVIII. The rout.
XXIX. A black BLONDEL.
XXX. The first
task.
XXXI. The second task.
XXXII. Lions.
XXXIII. The cosmetic.
XXXIV. Down the river.
XXXV. The return.
XXXVI. Waking.
XXXVII. Making the best of it.

LOVE AND LIFE.

CHAPTER I. A SYLLABUB PARTY.

Oft had I shadowed such a
group
Of beauties that
were born
In teacup times of hood and
hoop,
And when the patch
was worn;
And legs and arms with love-knots
gay.
About me leaped
and laughed
The modish Cupid of the day,
And shrilled his
tinselled shaft.—­Tennyson.

If times differ, human nature and national character
vary but little; and thus, in looking back on former
times, we are by turns startled by what is curiously
like, and curiously unlike, our own sayings and doings.